Halflings

[MonsterMash]

read the story hour in my sig.

we have two halflings in the party.
one gnome
one dwarf
and one human.

You only need three more haflings/dwarves/gnomes and your party song could be
high ho, hi ho, its off to the dungeon we go!

 

[francisca]

Hobbits in my campaign are just like those of Tolkien, except they are "grown up" in outlook similar to the Shirefolk after the War of the Ring. Adventuring hobbits are similar in outlook to Meriadoc the Magnificent or Peregrin Took.

That's about it for me too. 1/10 has Napolean complex, however.

we have two halflings in the party.
one gnome
one dwarf
and one human.

Sounds like a setup for a joke.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

IMC, they (along with gnomes) were nearly hunted to extinction for sport by a long-dead human empire. Today they travel in large caravan cities across the continent, trading and serving as mercenaries. Each caravan-city has its own system of government, with the head of the caravan called the reeve. As with many gypsy cultures, the "settled folk" believe them to be little more than thieves and brigands, though this is seldom the case.

 

[JimAde]

Mine are mostly Tolkienesque in outlook, but there is a higher percentage of "adventurous" types. Also, they consider themselves heir to the fallen Roman-style empire, so they tend to dress and live like Medieval/Renaissance italian gentry and peasants. Think "much ado about nothing."

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Halflings in my campaigns are mix of Tolkien Hobbits and the halflings from Mary Gentle's "Grunts." That is to say that most of them are food and comfort loving burrow-dwellers, but there are some adventurous halflings and also some really vicious rogues amongst them.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Masters of...

Halflings have build an empire based on trade and trade support services, humans are a subject race (even if they don't know it), dwarfs and elfs are in decline and trade in good friendship with the halflings. While there are kings and other powerful groups the halflings direct and control things from the shadows, seeing the other races as resources: consumers or producers and if not one of those, a tool to create a market for them.

 

[RamYaz]

'Tolkienesque' halflings

Mine are 'tolkienesque' halflings

Inevitably he (J.R.R. Tolkien) set the standard. I emphazize their troublemaking capabilities due to their 'hyper-curiosity'.

 

[Kanegrundar]

I tend to use the basic outline for halflings presented in 3E. They are nomads, gypsies, thieves, and merchants. They are among the most gregarious races in the lands and well-liked overall, but not exactly trusted.

I do have a sub-race I call hobbits that are related, but are as Tolkien wrote them to be.

Kane

 

[MaxKaladin]

I've got a few different hobbit/halfling cultures in my homebrew.

The main group in my Roman-like empire once had a island homeland but they supported an enemy of the Roman-like empire when it was still rising and even won a war against them, but eventually got crushed by the legions for their trouble. After a couple of unsuccessful revolts, their population has been dispersed around the empire and beyond and tries to preserve their culture as much as possible while dreaming of the day they can return to their homeland.

An offshoot of this group aided a group of humans who were being conquered by the Roman-like empire to escape across the ocean and ended up becoming an important scholar-merchant class in the new nation.

In scattered places around the world, there exist what my players have come to call "Cajun hobbits". They live in swamps in villages raised on poles or set on little islands. Their villages are surrounded by treacherous terrain trapped with a variety of traps that will be triggered by anyone heavier than a hobbit. They have what amounts to cajun cooking, which is part of how they got the nickname from my players. The group my players actually encountered were also wreckers (people who trick ships into sailing onto rocks or other hazzards so they will wreck and then swarm aboard to kill any survivors and steal anything of value).

There is a rumored island kingdom of hobbits to the south that is said to be ruled by a queen. Supposedly nobody has ever been able to invade successfully because of the dense jungles and the networks of hobbit sized tunnels that run all around the island.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

There are two kinds of halflings in my current campaign: city halflings and country halflings.

The cityfolk tend to look a lot like standard PHB halflings, except that many of them have a penchant for caregiving. They run the world's most famous hospitals.

The countryfolk are wild, dinosaur-riding barbarians.

Oh, yeah - I'm currently playing in Eberron.